A terrorism case has been registered against Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leaders and lawyers for slapping Khawar Maneka outside a court in Islamabad, 24News HD TV channel reported on Thursday.

According to the channel, the First Information Report (FIR) has been registered at Ramna Police Station Islamabad and 12 policemen have become witnesses to the slapping incident.

The channel said the names of 25 accused including PTI lawyers Naeem Panjotha, Ali Ijaz Butter, Zahid Bashir Dar, Usman Gill, and Ansar Kayani are included in the FIR.

According to the FIR, as court proceedings commenced in Islamabad, PTI leaders and lawyers began gathering outside the court.

Advocate Burki was leading the PTI lawyers and activists outside the court. When the hearing ended and Khawar Maneka came out, Advocate Burki shouted that Maneka had testified against their leader Imran Khan so he should not be left alive.

The FIR said Advocate Burki then pushed Khawar Maneka and Naeem Panjotha Advocate assaulted him with punches.

Yesterday, an unpleasant situation developed outside a court in Islamabad when prior to pronouncement of the decision in the illegal nikah case against former prime minister and PTI founder Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi, PTI lawyers and party workers attacked Khawar Maneka, the petitioner in the case.

PTI female workers threw bottles at Maneka and even had a scuffle with him, while PTI lawyers slapped him inside the courtroom. 

As the Islamabad district and sessions court did not announce its already reserved verdict in the Iddat case against Imran Khan and Bushra Bibi, the complainant, Khawar Maneka – the former husband of Bushra Bibi – was assaulted outside the court.

Judge Shahrukh Arjumand went back to his chamber without announcing the verdict after Maneka expressed distrust in the judge.

As the judge left the courtroom, the PTI lawyers hurled bottles at Khawar Maneka over using abusing language against the party founder and his wife.

The court had reserved its verdict last week on appeals filed by the PTI founder and his wife against their conviction in the Iddat case, which was the third and last in a series of verdicts announced just a few days before the general elections.

A video clip on TV channels showed Maneka, dressed in a white shalwar-kameez, walking outside court as men, who appeared to be lawyers, thrashed him.

Earlier speaking during the hearing, Maneka said that he wanted to bring to the notice of the court what agony he had to go through because of the PTI founder. He said none other but only he could better express his emotions. He further said he knew what the court’s decision would be in the case.

At that moment, a PTI lawyer requested the court to issue a show-cause notice to Maneka. This infuriated the latter who said he was not talking to him but to the court. PTI lawyer Naeem Panjutha said that Maneka wanted to delay the case’s hearing.

On that occasion, PTI female workers, who were present in the courtroom at that time, started making noise.

Maneka was of the view that leniency was shown towards Imran because he was the country’s former prime minister. “It would have been far better if similar treatment is meted out to an ordinary person.”

He went on to say that he was ready to swear that his children were not aware of their mother Bushra Bibi’s nikah with Imran. “I had no idea that the former prime minister had secretly married my wife,” he added.

Later in a fit of anger, Maneka called PTI founder a ‘donkey’. This did not go down well with Imran’s legal team at all which asked him to mind his language. Maneka, too, on the other hand, accused the PTI lawyers of calling him names. “Usman Gill had said to me that he would throw me out of the court,” he alleged.

The judge, however, asked him not to use foul language against the former prime minister. 

He further said he had no idea what Imran used to do with Bushra in his home. Saying he did not even give a damn to the PTI founder, Maneka said the latter knew nothing about the holy Quran. “I was mistaken. I was under the impression that he came to our house to learn religion,” he said, adding, “But it was when he secretly married Bushra that it dawned upon him that he had deceived us. The truth of the matter is that Imran is a womanizer.”

This comment enraged the PTI workers, who shouted slogans against him to vent their anger. “Come back to the case,” the judge asked Maneka.

Maneka was of the view that the Muslim society had decayed during the last four years. “Imran is facing the Almighty Allah’s wrath,” he said, adding, “The former prime minister gave nothing to the nation’s youth but shouting abuses at opponents.”

He went on to say that when his children learnt about their parents’ divorce, they broke down into tears. “My mother could not withstand the pressure and died,” Maneka said with tears in his eyes.

He said it was laid down in the holy Quran that believers should first complete the period of iddat after divorce. “There were no issues if Imran and Bushra had solemnized the nikah on February 18,” he said, adding that they preferred to tie the knot on January 1.

Nobody, Maneka said, throughout the four years asked me about the tragedy I had met. “But they kept coming to me for their works. PTI President Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi visited my home for his son’s work.”

Then addressing the judge, he said he did not trust him and did not want him to pronounce verdict in the case.

On the other hand, in a letter to the Islamabad High Court (IHC), Shah Rukh Arjumand, District and Sessions Court judge, hearing Imran Khan and Bushra’s appeals in illegal nikah case, said that since for the second time Maneka had shown his distrust in him, it would not be appropriate for him to give decision in the case. 

He said the court had already rejected a plea expressing no-confidence in him but showing no-trust again suggests that it would not be appropriate for him to pronounce the verdict. He, therefore, requested the IHC to task any other court with hearing the appeals. The judge accused Maneka and his lawyers of always obstructing the hearing of the case.

Reporter: Tayyab Saif